Shit on You Anllo by Raquel Couto Antelo - HTML preview

 

Maybe I’m some kind of Diogenes; I’m not going to deny it. They say it’s owed to the lack of affection, I’m not saying it isn’t; although I believe it’s more owed to the lack of money or, in my case, to the lack of willing to waste it. I didn’t take so many things either: two chairs, no, three chairs, two wooden and one metal, this last one was more outdoors furniture but I have it at the hall to leave the purse; a TV table from the 70’s of those which had a plywood, that I had changed by one pine piece and that, in the end, I turned into a computer table; one forge mirror frame, and if I hadn’t thought it twice I would have a matching side table; an armchair with big flowery upholstery; one side table with glass shelves, which I also exchanged by two pieces of pine because I put on airs covering the shame with false indifference; a standing bird’s cage and a rocking chair.

It’s not necessary to have a especial talent, a bit of sharpness to distinguish an item placed next to the dumpster because there is not room inside, from an item placed next to dumpster because the double-parking close to a dumpster looks less double-parking. This is really important.

The truth is that I became overconfident; I thought I was an expert and I put my foot in it. It’s what happens when one becomes overconfident.

That was a BEAUTIFUL armchair, with that certain charm of the abandonment, which almost matched the other I had taken some months before. Its seat was a bit tore, completely tore really, I could see two springs drilling the bottom upholstery. I turned it upside down, checked it hadn’t woodworm and took it. The usual procedure.

Afterwards, at home, I proceeded to make a more detailed assessment of the damages. Woodworm no. Upholstery good, a bit grimy but good. Upside down, bottom fabric frayed. Of course it was, couldn’t they think of anything better? The springs were as thick as the ones Dick Dastardly uses to overtake and the engineer that had designed the bottom of the armchair expected to hold them back with a piece of flowery fabric.

Patiently I took off all the staples that sewed the fabric to the wood, I removed the upholstery, undid the strings that tied up the springs and took them off. I vacuumed it, cleaned it with a damp cloth, with the upholstery cleaning, with the wood cleaning, I rinsed the wood cleaning, rinsed the upholstery cleaning, I let it air to get dry and tidied all the leftovers because I may be very tight- fisted but very clean. The staples went fast through the vacuum pipe, but the piece of upholstery got stuck, the vacuum pulled eagerly but the damned fabric was so strong... maybe the wretched upholsterer was right.

And it didn’t passed, switched the vacuum off, pulled the piece of fabric out, and pulled, and get out once and for all, and it didn’t come out, and I pulled again. And it came out at last, and my bum hit the ground. Ruts of sweat run down my face and I had to dry my face, and I did it with the first thing I had to hand, the piece of fabric, of course. Disgusting, I know it. I realized too late, when I smelt that mixture of close up, damp and rust. It made me retch, and what if that smell didn’t come exactly from the things I deduced? And what if that brown colour didn’t come from a dye? And what if I caught the scabies?

All my body began to itch; I felt the urgency of going to wash myself, although I didn’t do it because when I was looking at the fabric with disgusted face I saw it had something written. Curiosity beats disgust. I extended the canvas and rebuilt the wild threads to be able to read clearly what it said:

NOT IN THE POT, NOT IN THE SAUCEPAN THE DEVIL IS IN YOUR HAND

“Not in the pot, not in the saucepan, the devil is in your hand” I repeated aloud; it was catchy. I supposed it was a kind of saying of those they embroidered at cross- stitch classes like “when it rains and it shines the devil walks around Ferrol” or “well-being and bum force” or refined things like that. I worked out it was there because the upholsterer was as stingy as me or because that wasn’t the original fabric of the armchair’s bottom, just one they put there to ward the witches off.

But it was catchy; I couldn’t take it out of my mind in the whole week. I told it to Xan at work when he pushed in at the copy machine and put a good kid face “not in the pot, not in the saucepan, the devil is in your hand”. I dropped it to the rat bastard that took away the parking space I had waited for patiently for five minutes "not in the pot, not in the saucepan, the devil is in your hand". To the neighbour’s dog that got into the habit of doing a poo on my doormat, right, it’s a piece of artificial grass, but that doesn’t justify her "not in the pot, not in the saucepan, the devil is in your hand". And I also told it to the baker who likes the sayings, and to the idiot that swapped The Mentalist for the soccer "not in the pot, not in the saucepan, the devil is in your hand". I said it six times, six.

It’s not that I want to give the six a bad reputation; it’s that I said it six times aloud and from then on things started to happen. Weird things. The chairs moved, all of them, not only the ones I had taken from the street; the telly switched on and off on its own, without I doing it, I mean; and the DVD burnt the wrong programmes, the swine burnt the documentaries instead of the gossip shows!

The spoons upside down, the pots in the frying pan’s place, it wasn’t that I didn’t remember where I had put them, no, the things had moved. The truth is that I didn’t see them changing places, or flying away or so; but the telly switched on by itself and the DVD burnt the documentaries instead of the gossip shows. And I was almost completely sure that I had put the macaronis in the pot, I mean, almost completely and absolutely sure. Plus, at night, the blankets didn’t do more than fall out of the bed; previously too, I use to dream passionately, but then they fell, I don’t know, in a different way.

- You went crazy – Bego said looking at me over her glasses – you really are crazy, you are the Don Quixote of the gossip columns, I had already told you so.

No, it wasn’t that, I didn’t see the traffic lights turning into paparazzi in front of me. No, I noticed things were moving from their places.

I explained clearly to her all the tapestry with the mysterious message thing.

- Oh! Well! It wasn’t Don Quixote, it was the Tapestry Code – Bego exclaimed with a sarcastic smile.

I had to get serious, I invited her to have lunch, I would cost me a pizza, but it would be worthwhile if I could prove it was real, because her sarcasm was starting to annoy me.

In the way home I began to think that maybe it all was the result of my imagination; that I was going to make the B-I-G-E-S-T ridiculous ever. I used several times the “if you can’t, it doesn’t matter”, but Bego, that knows me for long, thought I was doing it to avoid spending the 10 euros of the pizzeria’s day offer and far from offering to pay herself or even to pay half, she repeated several times that she could and that she was looking forward to arriving at my place to “wet herself”, she said it just like that, of my paranoia.

But if the repentant thing went wrong for me, the wet herself thing went wrong for her. We hardly put our feet inside the door when we saw crossing in front of our eyes two slippers and a little towelling toad. Bego looked at me surprised, surprised I was too, I had never seen such a thing; I was almost completely sure that things moved from their places, but I had never seen them moving.

- Oh my god! – Bego shouted.

She should think it better afterwards and decided it was some of my dodges to make fun of her and went in so confident, with that bravery one gets when she thinks she knows all. I took it more cautious, I actually knew that was for real.

There was an awkward calm in the inside that sure was an ordinary calm but that, expecting the worst, seemed awkward.

The drawers of the cabinets were opening and closing as if Mary Poppins were singing the Supercalifragilistic- expialidocious; and the clothes were going in and out as if they were tied up at the drawer’s bottom by an elastic band.

At that point, Bego wasn’t expecting an “I gotcha, I gotcha” or so. She expected, maybe, I got a chair close to her not to crash into the ground when she fainted. Unluckily for her I was as astonished as her and she fell fast asleep, on the floor. Luckily for her I had just vacuumed. The blow wasn’t too big either because she didn’t take long to get up, or it seemed to me because I still was astonished. The thing is that she got up and took me out of the trance.

- Dude, your place is haunted! – She shouted like deducing.

- Yeah – I said.

- Awesome! – She exclaimed.

- Yeah – I said.

- Look how things fly! – She pointed out.

- Yeah – I said.

After a while of conversation as eloquent as this, seeing everything on the air, we went to the kitchen and tried to eat something. We tried because we really couldn’t. The knives flying were a bit more impressive than a chubby little toad.

- Come – Bego said – let’s go to that magic shop near to railway station.

She got me completely freak out, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

At the magic shop near the railway station we had to wait for the woman in charge to understand the reason for our visit; and she didn’t took long because she was slow... Bego was plenty of determination until the tune of the bamboos announced our entry. I was still astonished and even the bamboos’ movement announcing our entry, that were hanged from the ceiling by a string, seemed to me owed to an “apparition”.

- Good afternoon – The kind lady greeted.

We, that actually were women, didn’t answered, not by lack of kindness but by transitory mental disease, permanent in my case according to Bego.

- May I help you? – The shop assistant asked after a few minutes, seeing we didn’t move from our place, or look round, or anything.

Bego stood there looking at the woman and I stood there looking at the bamboos.

- I’m here working; if you need something let me know – The woman said.

We still had our head in the clouds, luckily for the woman Bego’s boyfriend phoned to find out the reason why she hadn’t arrived yet if she had told him to meet fifteen minutes before. The call had the double cutting edge of telling-off and lifebelt. She left with the excuse of arriving as soon as possible and abandoned me standing opposite to the good woman that was serving and that you could easily see she was about to lose her temper. About to lose her temper but keeping the pleasantness. She stared at me keeping the smile, waiting for a proof of life on my side.

- Look, it’s not that you are bothering me – She said after a few minutes – but, maybe, you don’t find here what are you looking for.

- No, I... well, maybe not – I said at last – it was my friend’s idea to come here.

- Well, at least we know something – She said – and why did she think it was a good idea to come here?

The truth was that the woman was a born seller because taking something out of me in that condition was a total display of knowing how.

And she took it all out, I told her what had happened and thank goodness it was a magic shop because if it were a greengrocery I would get a hundred of recipes, spells and evil eyes. But being that a magic shop I left with the name of a supposed expert in paranormal phenomena of the A Coruña University, because in this business of moving things knew better than the ones from the Santiago University.

- Of course, that’s what they say – The assistant doubted.

The man’s name was Igor Casas de Andrade, and because the woman had told me he was a professor of the A Coruña University, who in this business of moving things knew better than the ones from the Santiago University, according to them, because otherwise I easily could imagine him with a travelling hump on his shoulders.

In front of the directory of the Mysterious Science Faculty I looked up the floor of the Igor’s department “Goblins and similar creatures”. I knew I was right once I read the paper stuck on the door with sellotape:

ANALYSIS OF THE GOBLIN’S BEHAVIOUR II

MARKS OF THE YEAR

Igor Casas de Andrade

A Coruña, 9th January 2010

Underneath, a list of fourteen names, with a number in black from 5 to 10 next to them; except for Lois París García’s. Next to Lois there was a 2’5 in red and bold numbers.

- The motherfucker did it again – I heard behind me – how things were for you? – He asked.

I looked at him trying to decide whether to take offence at taking me for a student of such a subject, or be flattered that he had taken me for a university student.

- Fine, I’m not his student – I answered pointing at the door.

- Well, you don’t know how lucky you are, I finished my degree five years ago and I hadn’t passed yet – He said.

- So you only have this subject left? – I asked.

- Yes, dear, only this – He answered trying to make me feel sorry for him.

- Oh well, then you haven’t finished the degree yet – I dropped to make him get his act together.

It’s not necessary to say that he looked stern at me; he didn’t look good anyway, he was a kind of slim guy, with a pair of infinite legs under a paunch grown by beers and a clear head with almost sharp ending ears. That appearance, talking of the faculty we are talking about, looked more like an exchange student from the magic Eume Woods than a university student repeating the year.

- I see, the girl is a know-all - He muttered scratching his ear with angry face – then, I don’t know what are you doing here, I almost feel like wishing you are his wife, of course it would mean five years more of fails.

He looked up and down at me and knocked on the door over my shoulder keeping the look.

- Yeah? – Came out from the inside in bad mood tone.

Lois opened the door and let me see the so-called Igor hadn’t a hump on his back, but he neither looked like an erotic fantasy, he looked more like a grumpy half misery old guy that lived on coffee and nicotine.

- I come to review my test, and outside there is a woman with foul tempers enough to be your wife, I would say your daughter but I refuse to believe that there is someone who wants to... – He ended with an obscene gesture.

Without even turning a hair about his pupil’s disrespectful remark, and without taking his eyes of the book he was reading, he held out his hand to a pile of papers he had next to him, took a bundle of them and gave it to Lois. And, also almost without taking his eyes of the book, looked at me from the corner of his eyes.

- What do you want? – He yelled at me.

I didn’t like the tone and I took long to answer, because of this and because I was embarrassed to tell him the story in front of the guy I had just humiliated reminding him he was a failure; of course he got even his way.

- Hey you? Are you alive or what? – He shouted again.

- Yes, I am – I answered – excuse me, I was trying to see which piece of furniture was talking.

Lois suppressed a laugh behind the test, but the teacher didn’t turn a hair.

- What? Can you speak? – He insisted.

- Well – I said trying to put aside the embarrassment – the thing is that I have something at home that changes things from their places flying.

- What? A diligent servant? – The old guy muttered – that would be weird for sure – He ended.

- I really don’t have a clue, but I can assure you it isn’t a servant, it still didn’t ask me for a contract. I came because they talked me about you at the magic shop near the railway station – I explained.

- Oh! I see, there! You should go back and tell them to sell you one of my books, this is not a surgery, I am fed up with they sending me every unbalanced that goes through their door – The misery professor said.

I didn’t have too much more option than leave, Lois still was standing behind the test laughing, I suppose. I was grateful, at least I didn’t have to see his face, the old guy’s either, that surprisingly didn’t turned a hair in any moment, didn’t raise the head in any moment.

- What a cheek you’ve got – Lois said coming next to me with agility.

- You too, you are going to do your best in the next exam – I replied.

- I don’t think there is going to be next exam, I only have one more chance and I’m not going to waste it with this stupid, I’m changing to Compostela, fuck him off! And you’d better have clear I always do my best.

- Of course, but the teacher’s got in it for you – I dropped.

- Yes he has, you bitch – He said upset.

- It’s not necessary for you to shout, I do believe you, you took it well.

- Sure, I’m going to slash the four tyres of his Mercedes, I have already find out where he keeps it, the mother fucker’s brings a Panda here – Lois said.

- Maybe he doesn’t trust his students – I said with sarcasm.

- Maybe – He smiled – do you want me to have a look at your home thing? I can’t pass this guy subject but I passed the rest with distinction, I can show you the certificate if you want.

- No, don’t bother, your marks are the less worrying about you – I said.

I wanted to mean about everybody, because I wasn’t referring to him in particular either; but I wasn’t taking home the first guy that sympathizes with me at a university, especially if he did it in faculty like that.

- Don’t get mixed up by the Mercedes’ tyres, that’s a minor detail, last year I crossed his dog with a stray one... but only because they liked each other, I didn’t force them... I’m not making it any better, am I? – He asked with a little devil face.

- No, certainly not – I answered.

- But I only mess him about, and I swear I had never done a spell for him, I fulfil the deontological code scrupulously – He explained.

- Fine – I said.

- Come on, this is the first chance

I have to see something like that live – He begged.

- What do you study here for? – I meant badly.

- For solving problems like yours – Lois put an end.

- Of course, and how are you going to solve it if you haven’t faced anything like that before?

- I’m well documented, I can recite you by heart all the bibliographical references about this topic, all the documented historical references, the scholars’ theories, the villagers’ theories, my theories... I did my doctoral thesis five years ago and I improve it each year. You aren’t finding anyone that knows better than me. Not even the old man, as much as they have recommended him at that magic shop of yours – He argued.

- I’m not questioning any of that, I’m sure all you are saying is true, but you will understand I have enough with what I have without adding a psychopath – I dropped.

- I’ll do it for free – He haggled.

- Oh! Did you want to charge me for that? – I was shocked.

- No, I didn’t, I’m telling you I’m doing it for free; plus, if you let me see it, I’ll take you out to dinner – He offered.

- I see, you really have a cheek – I cut him short thinking the whole story was a filthy strategy to chat me up.

- It was worthy trying – Lois said giving up the negotiation.

Too soon I would say; but even wining I couldn’t overlook a free dinner. It was the equilibrium a fair world needed. I invited Bego to have lunch, Lois invited me to dinner, and in exchange I let him try to solve my little problem. Even failing the so-called Igor’s subject, he couldn’t make it worse.

- Let’s see, where are you going to take me? – I shouted.

Lois slammed on the brakes and looked at me without turning round, with an evil pataky style pose and said: “wherever you want”. Oh dear! My pupils turned into crabs.

- Not very expensive, I’m under thousand – He ended.

My pupils turned into meat and omelette.

- Deal – I said shaking hands to formalize the agreement.

He smiled and shook mine firmly but no too tight.

- First dinner or house? – He asked, it seemed to me with double meaning.

But I wanted to make it clear that was a business issue and even risking he didn’t keep his part of the deal, as far as inviting me to dinner was concerned, I told him “first home”.

In front of the door I was afraid again of the ridiculous it would mean things had become normal in the meanwhile of looking for help, increased by taking home a stranger with an excuse that might be false.

- Aren’t we going to go in? – He asked urgently.

I opened the door with my eyes closed expecting to see flying, at least, the twelve-year-old Cuban rum bottle I kept in the larder since the faculty trip.

- Bloody hell! – Lois shouted opening his eyes and raising his hands up to his head.

There was something trying to hanging the milkwoman on the hall wall where, of course, there wasn’t a tack to do it.

“PLAS” “PLAS” “PLAS”

- The rat bastard is going to break it – I said leaving the keys in the door lock and grabbing the picture.

I expected to feel an invisible force, the invisible thing was obvious, if I could see it this story would be meaningless, if it was the ghost of, I don’t know, Paul Newman, when he was young of course, I would take it easy, what for I was going to kick him out? And no, as soon as I took the frame it remained free on my hands, and the keys run to the kitchen jumping of joy as if the corridor was a field of daisies.

- Holy crap! – Lois exclaimed dumbfounded – I have been waiting for something like this all my life! – He said tapping the air expecting to feel something.

He went after the keys and at the kitchen he sat down on a chair to see how the “apparition” beat with a spoon an earthenware casserole I had for the salads... It gives them a touch of thickness, not so herbal...

He signalled me to sit down next to him.

- Well, in a first diagnosis I’ll say it is a goblin.

I had to look at him badly; the magic shop’s woman had just told me so, that’s why I had gone to the Mysterious Science Faculty searching for the “Goblins and similar creatures” department.

- Fine, well, it could be an elf, a leprechaun, a gnome, a devil, a nymph...

- Sure and if I were Snow White they would be the Seven Dwarfs – I said with sarcasm.

- I have to go for my instruments to do more tests. Oh god! It’s so exciting! This is the most important day of my life! – He said giving me two warm kisses, chaste, very chaste.

He left in a hurry, leaving me with the drummer goblin that was going to burst my head, or the eardrum at least.

He didn’t take more than fifteen minutes in coming back with a design shoulder bag that gave him an interesting intellectual look. He put it on a chair and spread several things out on the table, asked me for an adaptor and plugged four devices he brought in. Once they felt the current two of them started to give lights out; one a pillar of green light; the other a rainbow, not in bow shape but as a series of intermittent colours like a coloured forehead of KIT.

- I need them to place the spectrum we are moving in, country-city, water-earth-fire, workers- partying, joy-love, and so – He explained like knowing what he was talking about.

In a matter of seconds the drummer goblin stopped playing the casseroles and a silence fell only stained with the scientific deployment’s electric humming.

Suddenly, the green light pillar stopped as if someone had sat down on it and afterwards it interrupted intermittently as if the evil goblin was jumping through it by way of San Xoán’s bonfire.

I looked at Lois to see how good was his face. Not a clue. He was writing down in a small notebook he had taken out from the jacket since the orchestra went quiet.

Not later the device with the coloured lights started to flicker changing into green, going out, changing into blue, going out, changing into yellow, and on and on for a while. And for another wide while the gobling passed by each device like in an amusement park. Then by all in a row and then:

- Ha! – A shout of an indeterminate voice with a deafening volume.

I fell on my bottom because it seemed to me it had just shouted in my ear.

- Oh lord! – Lois exclaimed scrubbing his ear with the index finger – what the hell was that?

- Why are you asking “what the hell was that”? It’s you who has to say it, you are the expert, sorry, “the minus a subject expert” – I said.

- To tell the truth, the first thing that crossed my mind was that it was you that had hysterics – He dropped as revenge.

He got closer to the devices and pressed the buttons making notes at every moment.

- Ha! Ha! – We heard again with the hearing remaining from the former time.

Lois looked at me with scared face and, pointing at the air, he said in low “it speaks”.

- Ha! Ha! Haaaaa! – He repeated.

- Then tell him something – I answered also in low voice, but angry.

- Who are you? – Lois asked.

- Ha! Ha! – The goblin insisted.

Lois went back to the shoulder bag, he took out a laptop and looked something up eagerly.

- Ha! Ha! – The goblin repeated jumping from one device to another.

It was as if he suddenly realized he could shout, as if one of that devices revealed his voice and so he could bother more, Ha! Ha! Jump. Ha! Ha! Jump.

- Hey, listen, wouldn’t you have one device to see him? – I asked.

- Ha! Ha!

- That’s what I was looking for, if we can hear him we probably can see him – Lois said.

- Ha! Haaaaaaaaa!

- Well, it seems he doesn’t agree – I deduced.

- He didn’t understand us, he just shouts – Lois explained.

- Hi, hi, hi! – The goblin laughed.

Lois said he didn’t understand us but I deeply believe he did, and that he was laughing at us.

Lois finished reading what he was reading on the screen, closed it and kept into the bag. Afterwards he began to switch all the devices off, unplugged them, picked the wires and kept it all inside the bag. I thought he had read a catastrophe was about to happen and he was running away like a rat in a shipwreck, but he signalled me to shut up; he took the shoulder bag, grabbed my arm and we went out to the landing.

He wasn’t happy with me pulling the door, he told me to lock it with the key.

- What? – I asked dying to know.

- Let’s see... how did you say the... this thing appeared? – He asked taking a deep breath.

I told him the armchair thing, the saying written on the bottom fabric and Lois opened his eyes more and more, until I reached the six times thing. At that point he leaned against the wall, slid to the ground and sat down on the stairs.

- What?? – I asked again.

He stretched up to his bag, he opened it, took the devices out again and spread them all over the floor, took the laptop out too, opened it, switched it on, searched and showed it to me. On the screen there was a text document, he went down with the cursor until the headline “ANLLÓNS’ DEVIL” appeared, underneath there were a large text written with a very small letter that I could hardly read not because of its size but because my sight was blurred when I read the word “DEVIL”.

- Take it easy, don’t worry – He tried to calm me down seeing what should be my panic face – it’s not a devil in the catholic sense of the word, he is a goblin, but Anllóns’ neighbours called him that way.

Anllóns: next to A Ponte parish, at the Ponteceso council, I would say they are close or that even are the same thing, but they say they aren’t. It’s a place to which the mixture of the homonym river and the Cabana’s estuary covers with a mantle of magic, submitted to the tides’ whims and the floods’ fog, full with a thick vegetation and interrupted by a quarry.

The house of the Anllón’s Devil is at the beginning, on the right hand. At first it was the house of the Anllón’s crazy woman, or that’s what I imagine, it’s hard to believe that people called her the Anllón’s smart if she was telling all around she had a devil at home that threw the pot out of the fire. Generations and generations of the house of the Anllóns’s Devil lived writing down on the calendar the days the broth pot didn’t roll down the fireplace. They were, perhaps, the fast food precursors; they learnt to have to hand a piece of bread and cured meat, and maybe, some cheese and turnip greens.

The days were more and more until the day they thought the devil had disappeared, so much confident they were that when the bright Lola’s grandson thought of having recourse to set a rural guest house up subsidies, and to buy a BMW of course, they all encouraged him, at the end the house didn’t do anything there empty and it came in handy someone pruned the scrubs. However, starting to come clients and appearing the devil again was all the same.

The goblin still had the obsession with throwing the broth pot down the fireplace; of course that, being that a rural guest house and literally comply with the current health and safety regulations, that greatest exponent of the old customs of the house’s inhabitants had to be fix to the ground “in a way no user can be hurt if it moves accidentally”.

T